Before I continue, I want to make some points and perhaps a quick disclaimer;
1. I'm not a PVE expert.
2. Do not try what I have done with the expectation that I will work for you. My terribleness, is only trumped by my own dumb luck.
3. The fits I post are monsters of bad choices and too much money. Don't replicate them.
4. FFS, don't email me asking me for more details. Read that like one more time, if you even consider it. I got into some trouble with my C13 backpacking trip posts, now people think I'm the expert on confessor PVE.. and email me all the time to fine tune C13 site running. STOP IT! I just blog for my own self gratification! Make your own way, leave me alone!
Sorry... off topic vent there.
Idea Genesis:
I, just like anyone unfortunate enough to find this blog (mom), are seeking inspiration for our own activities in EVE. I've always said this to people, EVE is about taking an idea, a fit, an example or even a conversation and making it happen, just to see the outcome.
A few years ago, I went to my first EVE Vegas in 2013 and my very first player presentation I saw was this poor son of a bitch. Hats off to the this guy for standing in front of a room full of beards and showing them, there are different ways to play the game. You can hear it in his voice, public speaking isn't his strong suit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J46MTETfFc
If you don't have time to watch, you should make time its a great example of a player making his own way, doing the best he can and giving 0 fucks doing it.
For those of you who don't have time to watch, I'll summarize. He might be the worst public speaker I've ever seen, aside from perhaps myself, but if you look past all that, you can see this guy is on to EVE gold and sharing it with us, free of charge.
What Joker describes is, essentially going deep into unfriendly null sov owed regions and runs DED sites using black ops PVE boats. 7/10s,8/10s, 10 of 10s. All with neutrals in local and often taunting them while he's doing it. Now it might not be a "new idea" but from the perspective of a guy like myself with little to no NULL PVE experience but to me, it looked dope and NEW!
Ever since I watched it, I wanted to do it myself, just never felt so inclined.Well I did it, and its kinda fun.
Making it happen:
1st off, having multiple skilled pilots on 3 accounts is slightly key to making this work. Also understanding Covert Cyno jump ranges, what ships you'll be fighting and using correct tank and DPS to do these sites quickly, and better yet find the sites quickly too. Most of this info you can find online if you google, but for those not knowing how to Covert cyno.. well.. here's a quick description.
A covert cyno capable ship, my case a Proteus. Lights a Covert Cyno generator and covert jump capable ships simply right click on the pilot and select "Jump to player". Here is a link to the site I use to figure out how far I can travel from my staging point. (not my actual staging point you sneaky fuckers.. but an example)
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/range/Sin,4/M-MD3B
Easy right?!
The scout.
My least skilled pilot/account is about 60 million skill points, he flies the scout. The goal of the ship is to move quickly through defended SOV Null and scan as quickly as possible. With this ship, I can cover multiple systems and bypass bubble camps, drag bubbles, while still being able to haul Covert Cyno fuel for multiple jumps to and fro. I've found that when setting up a jump off point, the use of my wormhole experience has been able to help me to move in large amounts of fuel/equipment while by passing low sec and gate camps.
[Proteus, Git in Git fked]
Lows:
Damage Control II
1600mm Steel Plates II
Experimental Hyperspatial Accelerator
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Mids:
Scan Pinpointing Array II
50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Scan Rangefinding Array II
Highs:
Anode Electron Particle Cannon I
Anode Electron Particle Cannon I
Anode Electron Particle Cannon I
Anode Electron Particle Cannon I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Covert Cynosural Field Generator I
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher
Rigs:
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Subs:
Proteus Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Proteus Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter
Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Proteus Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Proteus Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
Sisters Core Scanner Probe x80
Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M x1948
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Sisters Combat Scanner Probe x8
Liquid Ozone x625
Now before you rip into me for not having T2 guns, or having like 80 probes (shift drag was mean to me).. 1st this character can't use T2 guns, and I really just put guns on it as an after thought, I don't expect it to ever need to shoot anything.. its just a scout. As for the rigs, well it was one of my old heavy armor proteus hulls I had lying around. I didn't see the need at the time to strip them for hyperspacials.
So, suggestions going forward if I wanted to fine tune it next time. (hind site being 20/20). Ditch the T2 Armor rigs, install hyperspacials, ditch nearly all tank and install either more cargo hold or gyros or nanofibers. Maybe even dual prop it for crashing gates, if a hostile cepter got lucky on a uncloak some time. This fit has WAY more CPU and Power left over, so I could change it quite a bit if I wanted or cared enough.
Again, first time doing this.. cut me some friggen slack bro.
Scouts job:
Find a section of space where the Sec value is the lowest and your preferred rats exist.
For my first run I chose Deep Fountain Serpentis space C-N4OD
Set my destination.. and go, not much can stop this rig.
This section of space is player occupied by ... whoever... names not important.. they can't stop me even if they wanted to. I tell them so, each time I pass through one of their gate camps. (btw, gate camping is pvp version of mining, you're bad if you do it, and you're not good at this game. May your characters get testicle cancer.)
The point of picking this one, was simply, it was in the middle of the map and was in range from my kick off point in NPC null. My launch point for my PVE Black Ops ships was in Deep NPC controlled Outer Ring Null.
Fuel being the key to my activities, I needed an NPC null sec region that I could set up a POS or some Mobile depots. (not the shit ones btw, the really hard to scan ones, their name escapes me at the moment) Its not that hard to find you Covert Cyno fuel in most NPC Null stations, but honestly, there isn't really a good station near deep fountain, so a small POS became my fuel station. A small POS costs about 200mil with fuel and equipment to run it, so who cares if someone comes and smashes, I'm not really storing much in it anyway.
The whole point of the POS is simply to make it possible to hold extra Jump fuel, not ships, though, I'm thinking of expanding my operations to include Black ops capable ships, for some future sorties. We'll see what I feel like doing next :).
All the scout does is, jump into the system, scan down the combat sites. Once one is found, I simple set up a safe point to covert cyno in the PVE ships. Once they arrive, they cloak up and then I reset the scout in an adjoining system, just in case things go sideways and I need a covert cyno exit.
I've found the better the Sec status, the better the chance for DED's.. but I'm not 100% on that, it just seems to be that way.
The PVE ships:
Now again, I'm not a PVE expert, the ships and the way I'm doing this might be totally wrong. Before I made this fit, I had NEVER done a DED site above 7/10. I had no idea what to expect or how long it would take.
Hind sight being 20/20 these ships and the dual spider RR/cap transfer is a bit much. In like the 10 some sites I've done so far, I've had to turn on both of them 2 times because I simply fucked something up or wasn't paying attention. More of an insurance policy more than a requirement. I figured, why chance it when dealing with this much money.
I dual box two of these
[Sin, Right boob]
Lows:
Centus A-Type Armor Thermal Hardener
Imperial Navy Drone Damage Amplifier
Imperial Navy Drone Damage Amplifier
Centus A-Type Armor Kinetic Hardener
Imperial Navy Drone Damage Amplifier
Centus A-Type Armor Thermal Hardener
Mids:
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Sensor Booster II
Federation Navy Omnidirectional Tracking Link
Federation Navy 100MN Afterburner
Large Micro Jump Drive
Highs:
Improved Cloaking Device II
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Drone Link Augmentor II
Drone Link Augmentor II
Centum A-Type Medium Remote Armor Repairer
Centum A-Type Medium Remote Armor Repairer
Rigs:
Large Anti-Kinetic Pump II
Large Anti-Thermal Pump II
Drones
Hobgoblin II x5
Warden II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
Vespa II x5
Garde II x5
Targeting Range Script x1
Optimal Range Script x1
This bad boy cranks out 680 DPS and can effectively track and one shot an incoming NPC frig at 105k range.
Again, I know there are better drones, better ships, but this was the first attempt at concept.
Process:
Step 1: Scout finds DED 8/10 or 10/10
Step 2: Scout creates safe spot for corp bookmarks.
Step 3: Covert Cyno in both Sins to the safe spot.
Step 4: Scout leaves or becomes eyes in adjoining system.
Step 5: Sins warp to DED and go into the first room
- The second I come out of the Gate warp, I pick a celestial that's on the other side of the next room gate and align to it with both characters. I do this for a lot of reasons; one, it gives me a common place both micro jump drives will arrive at; two, it puts me closest to the gate after the MJD, for less time burning back to the gate after the rats are dead.
- I begin locking both ships for the spider tank, once both ships are at full speed and aligned to the celestial, I MJD. Since both ships are identical in most ways, they land within 3k of each other.
- I then start repping both ships and cap transferring both ships, in typical spider tanking technique.
- I drop my Wardens on both ships, and start locking all frigs and destroyers. They are the fastest and some can even scram you so they should die first. Side note, when the frigs are approaching you, they have nearly no transversal, so the wardens just blap them out of the sky.
- If any cruiser or battle-cruiser gets below 30k, its next to be targeted. I clear all the cruisers/frigs before switching to the battleships, because the sentry drones have no trouble hitting them at nearly all ranges.
- Once all the rats in that room are dead, I simply yank drones, and after burn both ships to the gate. With this particular after burner, I'm moving at about 300+ or so. Relativity fast.
- After all the rooms, I simply bookmark the final can warp off, wait for the site to dspawn.
Of course the whole time, I'm hitting Dscan like a mad man, paying attention to what ships are on D, kill boards of those in local, watching for scouts, tackle, probes... signs that I might be getting hunted. If anyone comes calling, I can simply MJD away, or warp away and cloak... or blackops jump away and cloak. Maybe, if I'm feeling frisky, I can try and blap the tackle.,. who knows. :)
The whole process once the DED is found takes me about 45 minutes, give or take the type of site I find. The entire time, I know fully well that I have nearly 4 billion in assets in space, local is full, local knows fully well what I'm doing and they either can't or won't stop me. It gets the blood pumping let me tell you.
So far I haven't found a huge pay day in DED stuff, most of the loots I've gotten were fairly lack luster, a Pith X here, a vindi blue print there.. but the fun for me is getting inspired by someone to do something, then making it happen. I've made enough isk/items to cover 1 of the sins so far, but I've got that bug to do something in the game again, which really is my goal at the end of the day.
Maybe next time I'll fly dual widows... :)
